A whirlwind first weekend of the NBA playoffs, featuring eight games in 33 hours, is in the books.
Let's look at some key takeaways from Game 1 of opening-round series around the league:
Winner: The Houston Rockets' backcourt
Loser: The Oklahoma City Thunder's backcourt
The first round of the anticipated matchup between leading MVP contenders James Harden and Russell Westbrook went decisively in Harden's direction. Harden scored 37 points and handed out nine assists in a typically impressive offensive effort while Westbrook struggled to knock down shots, making 3-of-12 inside the arc and 3-of-11 beyond the 3-point line. The Thunder's star also had nine turnovers and fell three assists shy of adding a first playoff triple-double to his record 42 during the regular season.
The performance of the teams' other starting guards tipped the scale further toward the Rockets. For one evening, Patrick Beverley was almost Harden's equal. Beverley spent much of the game harassing Westbrook with his defensive pressure and still had enough energy to score 21 points -- a career high for a playoff game -- and grab 10 rebounds.
Westbrook's backcourt-mate, Victor Oladipo, missed 11 of his 12 shot attempts and all six of his 3-point tries. So while Houston's backup backcourt of Sixth Man candidates Eric Gordon and Lou Williams had relatively quiet nights, the Rockets still breezed to a dominant 31-point win.
Loser: The idea that the Cavaliers would flip the switch defensively when the playoffs started
The 18th consecutive win for LeBron James' team in a first-round game was the closest yet, as Cleveland needed to sweat out a C.J. Miles miss at the buzzer -- more on that in a moment -- to hold off the Indiana Pacers at home.
As has been the case throughout the second half of the season, the Cavaliers struggled defensively. The 118.9 points per 100 possessions the Pacers scored were the fourth-highest offensive rating of the opening weekend and a whopping 12.3 more than Indiana averaged during the regular season. Cleveland's offense was good enough to survive dismal defense in the playoff opener, but at some point the Cavaliers are going to have to get stops to win.
Winner: Jimmy Butler's trade value
In leading the Chicago Bulls to a win in Boston, Butler showed why he could be the piece that puts the Celtics or another team over the top, making key plays at both ends of the court. Butler scored half of his 30 points in the final quarter and also came up with a crucial block on Isaiah Thomas in the closing stages that deflected off Thomas and out of bounds to Chicago.
With Butler playing so well and the Bulls proving competitive enough to steal a game on the road, the asking price in the event he's traded this summer is only going up.
Loser: The Celtics' ability to score without Isaiah Thomas
Despite the emotional impact of losing his sister in a car accident a day earlier, Isaiah Thomas translated his regular-season success to the postseason, scoring a game-high 33 points on efficient 10-of-18 shooting -- the Celtics outscored Chicago by 12 points in Thomas' 38 minutes. But they were an atrocious minus-16 in the 10 minutes he spent on the bench.
That discrepancy was the continuation of a trend over a larger sample. After the All-Star break, Boston averaged just 93.8 points per 100 possessions with Thomas on the bench, 20 points fewer than they scored with him on the court, according to NBA.com/Stats. If the Celtics are going to overcome their Game 1 loss and advance deep into the playoffs, they'll have to find a way to score without Thomas.
Winner: Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder
Loser: Indiana Pacers coach Nate McMillan
While the situations weren't identical, Snyder and McMillan made different decisions about whether to take a timeout late in their teams' games and got different results.
After the Pacers forced a LeBron James miss down one with 20.0 seconds remaining, McMillan took his team's final timeout to set up a play. The Cavaliers used their foul to whittle that time in half, then trapped the ball out of Paul George's hands and forced Miles into a contested jumper off the dribble at the buzzer.
Later Saturday, Snyder let his team play without at timeout after Chris Paul's basket tied the game at 95 with 13.1 seconds on the clock. The Jazz never hesitated, getting the ball to Joe Johnson, who coolly sought out a screen from Joe Ingles to get Jamal Crawford switched on to him. Johnson drove on Crawford and scored over the help as the buzzer sounded.
In Snyder's case, the decision to play without a timeout was easier for a couple of reasons. A stoppage would have allowed Clippers coach Doc Rivers to sub out Crawford for defensive stopper Luc Mbah a Moute, and Snyder could draw up a play in the preceding timeout assuming the game was tied because otherwise the Clippers would have merely intentionally fouled. The Pacers had no such stoppage to prep for the final play.
Two shots is also a tiny sample size. Had Johnson missed, it's possible Snyder would have been criticized for not calling timeout to get organized. But the limited evidence suggests teams are probably better off playing without a timeout unless it's necessary to advance the ball to half court in the closing seconds.
Incidentally, the criticism of Indiana's final play we did see -- George complaining that he should have taken the last shot -- rings hollow. According to ESPN Stats & Information research, George is 2-of-31 in his career on shots to tie the game or take the lead in the final 15 seconds, a total that surely includes plenty of desperation attempts but still reflects how difficult it is for a star to score in these situations on a defense stacked against him. The Pacers didn't execute well enough after George gave up the ball, but an open shot from a role player is better than a forced one by George.
Winner: The Milwaukee Bucks' young core
By starting rookies Malcolm Brogdon and Thon Maker in Saturday's win in Toronto, per ESPN Stats & Info research the Bucks became the first team to start a pair of first-year players in a playoff game since the 2013 Golden State Warriors. (The Warriors actually used three over the course of their playoff run: Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli and a second-rounder named Draymond Green.)
While that stat is a tad misleading given Maker's starting role often tends to be ceremonial in nature (he played just 15 minutes in Game 1), Milwaukee still starts five players age 25 or younger, and 26-year-old Greg Monroe was the oldest Bucks player who saw more than 10 minutes of action Saturday. Led by a complete performance from Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee's youngsters played beyond their years in a game that offered Bucks fans an encouraging taste of what lies ahead.
Losers: The Raptors in Game 1, again
Temper Milwaukee's success with the fact that by this point we can almost put Toronto's loss at home on Saturday in Game 1 of the first round on the calendar. This is now four consecutive years of the bizarre trend, while other home teams have gone 22-6 (.786) in their playoff openers, according to ESPN Stats & Info research.
Based on the regular-season point differential of the Raptors and their opponents, we'd expect about a 0.4 percent (or 1 in 238) chance of Toronto losing four home playoff openers in a row by random chance (and 1 in 880 if we include losing to the Miami Heat in Game 1 of last year's conference semifinals). By now, of course, it's pretty clear that something beyond random chance is affecting the Raptors in the playoffs, whether it's the health of Kyle Lowry or the team's style translating poorly to the postseason. And that's particularly been true in Game 1 over the years.